UPDATE: The legal battle over Abrego Garcia remains unresolved months after his mistaken deportation to El Salvador. On June 6, 2025, Garcia returned to the US under the Supreme Court’s order, but was immediately indicted in Tennessee for allegedly transporting undocumented immigrants. Prosecutors sought to hold him in detention, but a judge ordered his release on June 22, finding that the government had failed to prove him a danger or flight risk.
However, in late August, ICE re-arrested Garcia and began new deportation proceedings, seeking to send him to Uganda. A federal judge blocked his removal until at least early October, giving Garcia’s lawyers time to reopen his 2019 case that had previously protected him from deportation.
In September, Garcia was transferred to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, where his attorneys raised concerns over poor conditions. Meanwhile, prosecutors denied that the criminal charges were retaliatory, and the Department of Justice moved to dismiss his lawsuit over the March deportation, arguing that the US Courts lack jurisdiction.
Garcia now faces both criminal prosecution and renewed deportation efforts, leaving his future uncertain.
On March 15, 2025, Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported from the United States after being wrongly accused of being a member of the MS-13 gang. He was then wrongly sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, CECOT), a maximum security prison built to house gang members. The prison has faced criticism and accusations of human rights abuses, such as “torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention,” as cited by Human Rights Watch. The U.S. Supreme Court has since ruled that the man must be returned to America,
Who Is Abrego Garcia?
Originally born in San Salvador, El Salvador, Garcia fled to America as a teenager to escape gang persecution. He entered the country illegally at Texas’s southern border in 2012. He then made his way to Maryland to reunite with his brother, who had immigrated a few years prior and is a U.S. citizen. He later married Jennifer Vasquez Sura, also a U.S. citizen, and the couple currently has three children.
In 2019, Garcia was arrested while looking for a job at Home Depot on suspicion of being a gang member. During his immigration trial, immigration agents presented their evidence: “an accusation from a confidential informant” claiming Garcia was a member of MS-13 and the fact that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey, “which the officials claimed was proof of his gang membership.” Abrego Garcia later won his immigration case with the judge granting him a special status called “withholding from removal,” meaning that he should not be deported to El Salvador due to danger of violence or torture.
On March 12, 2025, Abrego Garcia was arrested by immigration agents and moved around various detention centers until he was ultimately placed on a charter plane and deported to El Salvador without a trial. Coincidentally, he was deported along with a group of Venezuelan migrants, whom the Trump Administration was deporting under the Alien Enemies Act.
The Fight to Bring Him Back
The Trump administration has faced criticism for its handling of the deportations, with multiple politicians calling for Garcia’s return. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador to meet with Garcia and bring attention to his wrongful deportation as the Trump administration claimed that it had “no basis to return him to the United States.” His administration has also asserted that the deportations are part of a larger effort to reduce crime, as the White House maintains the claim that Garcia is tied to MS-13.
On April 10, the Supreme Court upheld a court order in a unanimous decision, stating that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Garcia’s return to the United States, citing that the government had “no basis” for Garcia’s “warrantless arrest.”
However, in a Meet the Press interview with Kristen Welker, President Trump shared that he has “the power to ask for him to come back if [he is] instructed by the attorney general that it’s legal to do so. But the decision as to whether or not he should come back will be the head of El Salvador.” President Trump also stated that he is not in contact with any El Salvadoran officials about returning Garcia. When pressed on Garcia’s lack of due process, Trump refused to disclose whether or not he agrees that everyone deserves due process, per the 5th Amendment of the Constitution. Trump stated he will defer to the Attorney General, explaining that he himself is “not a lawyer.”
Return and Continued Controversy
On June 6—over two months after he was first deported—Abrego Garcia was summoned back to the U.S. to face criminal trial for allegedly transporting undocumented immigrants within the U.S. At his hearing on June 13, he pleaded innocent to all charges. His attorneys characterized the case as a baseless attempt to justify his wrongful deportation after-the-fact.
Garcia was initially ordered to be held in pre-trial detention due to a perceived “danger to community and serious risk of flight.” However, on June 22, a federal judge denied the government’s motion to keep him in custody, stating it had failed to prove that Garcia posed a danger or flight risk. Many believed Garcia was likely to remain incarcerated before his trial despite the motion for his release, because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would likely find and detain him. On Friday, June 27, Garcia filed an emergency motion asking the federal judge to keep him in pre-trial custody after the Department of Justice made statements suggesting Garcia would be deported before his trial if ICE found him.